Srimadh Bagawatham - the role of karma part 2

Continued From: http://thoughtsonsanathanadharma.blogspot.ca/2013/04/srimadh-bagawatham-role-of-karma-part-1.html

We saw in my last post that the punyams should be offered to the Lord as oblation to bring the punyam account to zero. Now, what about the papams? Are we allowed to offer the papams as oblation to our Lord? No, this is because when we commit a misdeed we harm others. The easy way to get rid of our papams is by performing saranagathi at the Lord’s feet. We don’t know when we first started to accumulate papams as it is impossible to find. The only thing we know is the easy way by which the papams can be destroyed.

There was once a man who was waiting to see a sadhu. He was asked to sit outside the sadhu’s room in a waiting room. The man helped himself to some free coffee. As time went by, the man helped himself to three more servings of coffee. Finally the man was asked to go inside.

After offering his obeisance the man asked, ‘could you please let me know the time when I started to accumulate my papams?’

The sadhu looked at the man and then said, ‘what is that on your shirt front?’

The man looked at his shirt front and saw a coffee stain. ‘It’s a tiny coffee stain. I must have spilled a few drops on my shirt.’

‘How many coffees did you have?’

‘At least four cups.’

‘Could you tell me which cup of coffee is the reason for that stain?’

‘I don’t know; it could have been any one of the four cups.’

‘You don’t know which one of the four servings is responsible for the stain but you do know that if you wash the shirt, the stain could be removed. It is not necessary to know when we started to accumulate papams as long as we try to clean ourselves and remove the papams,’ answered the sadhu.

The Vedas teach us that we the atmans are different from the body. According to the shastras, a person must wash his/her mouth, hands and feet after attending nature’s call. If a person is residing say at Badrikashramam where the temperature is very low, the person wouldn’t feel like washing hands and feet every time. Failure to wash hands/feet after attending nature’s call results in the accumulation of papams.

We would think that the Lord wouldn’t want us to trouble ourselves in order to follow the shastras but this is not true. The trouble we anticipate is only for the body. Only the body can feel cold or heat; the atman cannot feel cold and neither can it feel heat. Through the shastras the Lord wants us to learn that we are different from our body. If we fail to take a dip in the cold water even though the shastras tell us to because we are afraid to bear the icy cold temperature, we immediately accumulate sins because we have identified ourselves as the body and not as the atman. If we had identified ourselves as the atman then we wouldn’t be afraid of stepping into the icy cold water even if it is the middle of winter. Mistaking ourselves to be the body is the biggest sin and every time we sacrifice the shastras for the sake of bodily comfort, we accumulate sins. Thus we are never able to spend our karmas completely.

Thus due to the addition of new karmas it becomes almost impossible to extinguish Sanchita and Prarabhdha karmas.

Take the example of a frog living in a 30 ft. well. The frog climbs 3 feet everyday but falls down by 4 feet. Will it ever come out of the well? Since it climbs only 3 feet but sinks by 4 feet it will never make it out. Our condition is similar to this frog.

By performing Saranagathi, Bhagawan frees us from all the Sanchita karmas. He tells us to extinguish only the Prarabhdha karmas after which we can reach Him. 

Continued On: http://thoughtsonsanathanadharma.blogspot.ca/2013/04/srimadh-bagawatham-role-of-shastras.html